Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

WallsRSolid writes "Microsoft just finished a week-long series of lectures and demos at my university, and the product that really stole the show was the Tablet PC. I was in a room with probably 150 hardcore linux users, and it seemed to me that the demonstration just floored them (the entire lecture hall CHEERED a Microsoft product). I believe that Microsoft's own online hype literature is insufficient in describing just how powerful their Tablet concept is. A July preview, Acer's propaganda, a press release about their initial success, and a behind-the-scenes account (good article) of the enabling technology. Oh, and the input stylus is electromagnetic, not pressure-sensing, ANY document (not just MS) can be annotated, and the journal software is AMAZING in its power and flexibility."

Comments

Re:Microsoft's mission

[SomeOtherGuy]

I know this is OT -- but your description of the Xbox was about the best I have heard yet. If you visit the demo centers usually the PS2's and Gamecubes are running strong, and then you have the Xbox's sitting their with the "blank screen of death". The fact that they die on demo in so many places is one feature that has reminded me not to pick one up.

Re:Wondering what's a Tablet PC?

[Ivan Raikov]

IBM just used it ala mouse-input. Microsoft is allowing people to use digital ink as a first class citizen in the computing world. It's a whole new way of looking at computing.

I don't speak marketing weaselese, so I don't know what "digital ink" is, but IBM had a little application that let you write with the stylus in say, a text entry box, and it would convert it to text on the fly. I'm also pretty sure Apple Newton did the same thing, and before that a research group in Stanford was developing similar principles. A whole new way of looking at computing? I think not.